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Re: Senate rejects Trump border emergency as Republicans defect

Originally Posted by Keridan

Let's hold out some hope, please. The GOP may be as overrun with idiots as the opposing party, but there is a difference when voting to override a veto. That one takes extra balls (if you'll excuse the phrase) and I think it's pretty obvious the senate isn't overrun with an abundance of strength.

I grant that it's a slim hope, but there are a couple repubs that I'm surprised voted for Trump this time. Maybe they take the second chance?

I'm also not 100% that Trump takes the chance. The man has shown he can cave when his vanity is at risk. Imagine how he will feel if his veto is shown worthless.

Re: Senate rejects Trump border emergency as Republicans defect

Originally Posted by JasperL

It's not a common tactic, because it's never happened before.

It really is an extraordinary move. Congress debated the issue for MONTHS, weighed Trump's request, the arguments for and against, and came to an agreement to give him $X. It's never happened before that Congress has spoken so clearly on a funding issue, and immediately after Congress spoke, POTUS said - screw you, Congress, I'll just spend what I want and I don't care what you say about funding.

You can support this - whatever - but you can't rewrite history and make up your own facts to claim what he's doing is common. It's just not - it's the opposite of common, which is unprecedented.

It’s been used at least 60 times in recent history. That’s pretty common. The situation surrounding its usage is irrelevant. Every situation is extraordinary. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be a need to declare an emergency.

"Oh no no no, you got me talkin' politics. I didn't wanna. Like I said y'all, I'm just happy to be alive. ” -- Sheriff Chris Mannix

Re: Senate rejects Trump border emergency as Republicans defect

Originally Posted by MTAtech

I didn't say I was the last word in poll validity but I do believe in statistical analysis and don't dismiss polls because I find the results inconvenient. You instead, suggested the absurd idea that unless everyone is polled, it isn't valid.

If that's how you took my post, that's on you. Polls are useful, but imo shouldn't be hailed as 'fact'. Especially when it involves the opinions of over 300 million people.

Me not responding means it's a waste of my time and/or I don't play stupid games. I read it, eye-rolled, and moved on.

Re: Senate rejects Trump border emergency as Republicans defect

Originally Posted by JasperL

The claim wasn't about your opinion, but about a majority of the country.

There are over 300 million people of voting age in the US. While polls are useful, they don't represent what the majority of what those people think on a given day. They can represent only what the majority of the number they polled when the number is that high.

Me not responding means it's a waste of my time and/or I don't play stupid games. I read it, eye-rolled, and moved on.

Re: Senate rejects Trump border emergency as Republicans defect

Next move is D.T. will veto it and it will go to court on the grounds that Congress holds the purse strings and can't abdicate a constitutional power to the Executive.

Originally Posted by ludin

which is a failed argument. since he isn't spending new money but reallocating already approved money.
the better argument would be to say that this isn't an national emergency as trump stated it wasn't.

While that other argument will also be made, your argument on appropriations is absurd.

What you are essentially saying is that Congress need not bother to have line items in the budget. It's just $4 trillion to be spent any way the president decides -- which we know not to be the case. You are proposing a line of argument contrary to over 200 years of legal precedent and American history.

Article I, Section 9 of the constitution says: "No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law;" According to the conservative Heritage Foundation:

Under the Articles of Confederation, under which Congress possessed the power to appropriate, there was no independent executive authority. With the creation of an executive under the Constitution, the Founders decided, in the words of Justice Joseph Story in Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, “to preserve in full vigor the constitutional barrier between each department...that each should possess equally...the means of self-protection.” An important means of self-protection for the legislative department was its ability to restrict the executive’s access to public resources “but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Justice Story continues:

And the [legislature] has, and must have, a controlling influence over the executive power, since it holds at its own command all the resources by which a chief magistrate could make himself formidable. It possesses the power over the purse of the nation and the property of the people. It can grant or withhold supplies; it can levy or withdraw taxes; it can unnerve the power of the sword by striking down the arm that wields it.

...
The courts have consistently recognized the primacy given to Congress by the Appropriations Clause in allocating the resources of the Treasury. As the Supreme Court declared in Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States (1937), the Appropriations Clause “was intended as a restriction upon the disbursing authority of the Executive department.” It means simply that “no money can be paid out of the Treasury unless it has been appropriated by an act of Congress.” In United States v. MacCollom (1976), the Court articulated an “established rule” that “the expenditure of public funds is proper only when authorized by Congress, not that public funds may be expended unless prohibited by Congress.”

Last edited by MTAtech; 03-15-19 at 06:42 AM.

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." --J.S. Mill

Re: Senate rejects Trump border emergency as Republicans defect

Originally Posted by ChezC3

It’s been used at least 60 times in recent history. That’s pretty common. The situation surrounding its usage is irrelevant. Every situation is extraordinary. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be a need to declare an emergency.

It has never been used to manufacture a fake crisis that the President using it even admitted was not a crisis ("I didn't have to do this, I just didn't want to wait") because the requesting President made a promise to his base and could not fulfill it.

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. ~W.C. Fields

Re: Senate rejects Trump border emergency as Republicans defect

Originally Posted by JasperL

Well, the great f'ing salesman had months to make his case to Congress and the public using that argument, and the moron failed. That's the actual problem here - not Congress. Trump had a GOP House and he couldn't get them to agree to his stupid wall, much less the Senate. I don't understand why you don't lay the failure where it belongs, which is at the feet of a disaster of a WH that in two years still couldn't win the funding he wanted for his wall. They had a deal in the Senate - Trump killed it - thanks Stephen Miller - because he thought he could get a better deal. Trump was wrong and Trump ****ed up.

He had 2 years to make his case to the Republican Congress. He didn't. He continued to screw it up, and he continued to fail and make it worse. You are exactly right - Trump failed.

But Trump's fan base will find a way to conveniently ignore that.

I'm still waiting for Roadvirus to tell us just how many of their constituents had their lives cut short by illegal immigrants. He couldn't have asked that question for hyperbolic reasons....could he?

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. ~W.C. Fields